2010 TextileExchange Farm & Fiber Report published

TextileExchange (the former OrganicExchange) recently published its 2010 farm & fibre report. Unfortunately facts and figures on organic cotton are not for free, but the report costs $400 (why do governments not sponsor this?!). Hence, I can only give you insight into the executive summary.

Here as some figures from p. 13 of the report:

241.697 metric tonnes fibre produced in 2009-10. This amounts to an increase of 15% to the 2008-09.

Organic cotton now adds up to 1.1% of global cotton production (year before: 0.9%).

There are 275.000 organic cotton farmers, who use 461.000 ha of land (in average: each of the 40 farmers in the US uses 130 ha, while each of the 236.000 farmers in South Asia uses 1.6 ha)

81% of worldwide organic cotton (195.000 metric tonnes) was produced in India. (From other sources I heard that 90% of cotton in India is GMO)